Heart of Red and Gold
by wirewrappedlily
Summary: Sequel to The American Way. Steve's come a long way to get to where he is, but he still has to be a bit of a dancing monkey. Steve/Tony


"Rogers, you need an extraction?" Clint was laughing, and Steve felt a little peeved at that.

"Not on your life, Barton, or I'll tear your spine out and make you floss with it." Bruce Banner threatened good-naturedly, and Steve couldn't hold back his smile.

"I don't want to go anywhere, Barton." Steve chuckled, then thought better of it, "Actually, that's a lie. I wanna go across the hall and see Tony."

"Bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding!" Clint sing-songed.

"I'm not seeing a bride here. Steve, pull the puppy eyes." Tony came up on the comm, and Steve smiled wider, "And, Barton, fuck you very much. Extraction."

Steve turned large, liquid blue eyes on Natasha, begging her to let him get to the door.

"Hell no, Fury's out there." Natasha said smoothly, "Coulson can only run point for so long, he is going to try to stop you from doing this."

"Still love me, Rogers?" Tony had cut off the other comm lines, opening a secure channel.

"Can't make me stop, Stark."

"I don't even have to hear both sides of that conversation to know that I want to throw up because of it." Clint gagged, and Natasha's lips twitched.

"How did you end up with Barton?" Tony asked, as if it'd been a custody battle that decided who was standing up for whom at the wedding.

"I ended up with Barton 'cause if you had him, he'd end up dead, and then Coulson would kill you."

"WHY ARE WE DOING THIS AGAIN?" Thor thundered, and everyone hissed, the comm lines squeaking feedback in their ears.

Steve looked up at his reflection in the mirror, checking the lines of the pure-black suit, the crimson handkerchief tucked into his jacket pocket. He looked...good, he guess. He didn't want to think about how he'd look next to Tony; oversized and clumsy when Tony was compact and grace. He hated this. He hated being in front of people. It was even worse than it had been when he was just the army's dancing monkey. He hated watching Tony's smile twist into this cracked-mirror image of itself. He hated the small talk and the fake laughing and he really hated it that Tony was always being "stolen" by congressmen or old, creepy women. He hated knowing that all eyes were always on Tony because Tony was expected to fuck something up; and he hated it that Tony knew that, too.

This was a photo op more than it was a wedding.

Tony loved him, and he knew that, but _this_ was for the cameras and the media and the thousand people that Tony Stark had to try to appease. Tony wasn't backing down on his decision to marry him, refused to play the part of a single man when Steve was waiting for him at home: This was the price they had to pay for that. Steve would pay it a hundredfold because Tony had chosen him, this way, without a second's hesitation.

Steve still couldn't believe Tony had asked him to marry him, let alone that he'd ignored everything his board of directors, Nick Fury, or Pepper herself had thrown at him for reasons not to marry good, wholesome..._boring_ Steven Grant Rogers. Steve had asked why the hell he'd chosen him, and Tony had simply looked at him, the question clear in his eyes, _"Have you met you?"_

Sometimes Steve felt like it was the physical that had Tony's interest. It scared him to think that. He hated that, and, really he didn't think it because of Tony. He'd been defined by the serum for most everything that had happened the way he'd wanted it to in his life. It wasn't Tony's past; it was Steve's.

As much good as the serum did, he hated being defined by it.

It wasn't long after that very thought surfacing that Tony had unearthed a picture of Steve Rogers, nineteen-year-old art student, smiling hugely at an awards ceremony for his portrait of his mother. Tony had that picture in his wallet, and a copy as his desktop. He looked at Steve with a kind of awe, and Steve had walked into his bedroom two days later to find every sort of art supply there had ever been. He wanted Steve for Steve, not for Captain America, and Steve loved him for it. To the point of pain.

Steve looked at himself in the mirror, all too aware that he hadn't looked this good since Tony had set up the Banner-Erskine foundation for under-privileged scientists from around the world.

Tony loved him. For him. And Anthony Edward Stark, playboy of the ages, was willing to give up a huge part of his image. Even though he and Steve were already having sex. It made Steve laugh to himself, to think that Tony already had him, and still wanted more. He loved it. Everything about it.

That was why Steve was willing to do this photo op: Tony's insistence that this had to be for the world to see just as much as it was for them convincing him that Tony wasn't doing this half-assed.

Steve didn't mind that this wedding really wasn't for him. The marriage was, and that's what counted.

It'd counted when Tony had almost screamed over the comms, watching him thrown through a building with nothing but rubble and broken re-bar to cushion his fall.

He'd unearthed himself a few minutes later, Tony absolutely shredding the monster they'd been put up against; vicious to the point that even Hulk had shrunk away. Tony had been somewhere between painfully relieved and insane with residual rage, his armour disappearing probably too slowly for Tony when it stood between them, back into the suitcase.

Steve remembered wondering why Tony hadn't grabbed him and flown home, why he'd let the armour retreat into the case.

"You're marrying me. Now." Tony had said, his eyes wide and crazed, and Steve wasn't going to argue. Press wasn't on the scene, wouldn't be for another fifteen minutes. "Coulson, you're marrying us."

"Hey, dipshit, I'm the one with the licence to marry people!" Clint snorted, letting Hulk set him on the ground from where he'd slid down a building.

"Don't care. Steve's marrying me, I want it to be official." Tony said, almost nonsensically. But then Tony's hands were closed over Steve's, and he felt miles overdressed in his suit and his cowl, releasing Tony's hand for a moment to unzip and lose everything. Natasha slid up silently, helping him strip to the dirty, blood-and-soot stained white t-shirt, getting as close to a smile as Steve had ever honestly seen her get to.

Tony's eyes had flashed with knowing, and Steve would never have to explain the distinction between Captain America and Steve Rogers.

Tony had taken his hands again, a steadying force of love and peace, and looked into his eyes.

There was no pomp, no circumstance. Clint had blamed the fire for his watering eyes and Natasha had muttered something in Russian that only Coulson, Steve, and she could understand.

Pepper and JARVIS, from the speakerphone that Bruce had set Clint's phone to, had congratulated them, and Pepper had reminded them that they had a wedding coming in any case.

Steve could handle everything else, so long as he got his chance at the happily ever after. "We're doing this because I want the world to know that Tony chose me." Steve told Thor quietly, and the door opened behind him, Natasha reaching for her knives as she rounded on the intrusion.

Tony closed the door securely behind him, propping himself against it for a moment as Bruce, Coulson, and Thor walked over to the others. Steve broke out in a smile that could blind, and Tony smiled back, real and ecstatic, "Pepper's running interference with Fury, and Rhodey's standing by to help. I had to-" Steve kissed the words out of him, and smiled as they rested their foreheads together, "I had to see you before this whole song and dance starts…" Tony breathed, and Steve nodded, connecting their lips again chastely, "because I need this." Tony took Steve's hand, his fingers pinching around the ring resting on Steve's ring finger already. Steve flinched, almost pulling his hand away before Tony could slip it from his finger. "You'll get it back, remember?" Tony breathed, kissing the naked-feeling skin where the ring had been. Steve pulled him into a kiss then, hard and hot, Tony's embrace around him powerfully strong and so wonderful he wanted to cry.

"It's three minutes to showtime, guys. Pair up and prepare for walking the aisle." Natasha ordered almost coldly, grabbing up a bouquet and sliding a circlet over her curls.

"Yes, ma'am." Clint groaned, checking his suit and getting himself ready. Natasha smiled at him just a little, fondly. Tony dropped his forehead to Steve's collar bone, his white suit against Steve's black suit; a blue handkerchief in Tony's pocket, and Steve's Iron Man-red.

"Hey…" Steve whispered, catching Tony under the chin and making him look up, "I love you, you idiot."

Tony smiled, and Steve felt like a moth drawn to a flame with that happiness meant for _him_: for Steve Rogers, the kid from Brooklyn with a love of art. "I love you, too, Rogers. I'm the luckiest sonofabitch in the world…"

Steve joined their fingers, passing watching as Coulson played distraction with Fury, passing Rhodey in his uniform and Pepper in a resplendent dress.

Steve could see his mom, his grandmother, Bucky, Dr. Erskine, Peggy, and even Colonel Phillips standing for him, happy for him. He'd been blessed to have had his family, and another besides. He'd been blessed enough to be given everything he'd ever wanted; a way to stand up for himself, the chance to be a hero, and something to fight for. He'd been blessed to have been let in to Tony's life, and now he was given a miracle, because he'd be a part of that life forever.

Steve leaned over a little to whisper in Tony's ear, just a breath away from stepping out into the chaos, "I think we're at a tie for that one."

* * *

**A/N: Thank you to everyone for the comments on The American Way! **

**I hope this was alright for a sequel.  
**


End file.
